body-container-line-1
20.05.2006 Regional News

Amanase KG lacks facilities

20.05.2006 LISTEN
By GNA

The authorities of the Amanase D.A. Kindergarten in the Suhum-Kraboa-Coalter District of the Eastern Region has appealed for urgent support to overcome the serious logistics problems facing it.

According to them, barely 180 of the over 300 pupils crammed into two classrooms have no access to furniture, leaving the rest sprawling on the floor during classes.

Another difficult situation facing the teachers of the school is the failure of parents to supply their wards with basic items, such as slates and school uniforms, thus making teaching and learning very difficult.

Such were the state of affairs at the school, as discovered by members of the Eastern Regional Multi-Sectoral Committee on the Child, who paid a working visit to the Amanase town on Thursday. The Committee was in the town to engage community leaders on how to stop the endemic problem of truck-pushing by school children in the town, due to failure of parents to properly maintain their children. The agenda of the Committee, which is under the aegis of the Ghana National Commission of Children (GNCC), also included the use of advocacy to phase out the practice by motivating the erring fathers to provide for their wards' needs or where necessary, be referred to the law enforcement agencies.

Madam Juliana Achiaa, Head of the KG said, there were only 18 benches with a maximum capacity of 10, leaving many children with nothing to sit on.

On the learning atmosphere, she explained that it had also been affected by the limited classrooms and appealed for assistance to help develop a site allocated to the unit by the chief. Madam Achiaa, who touched on the generally poor state of nutrition among the children, said most of the children, though appearing young, were mostly above the age of six, though the ideal age of the class should have been four at most.

She attributed the incidence of stunted growth and late enrolment in the school to the neglect often suffered by the children due to the failure of their parents to take proper care of their educational and health needs, creating the indirect cause of truck-pushing among many pupils in the town.

A number of pupils the Ghana News Agency (GNA) spoke to at the adjoining Presbyterian Primary School, confirmed the incident of parental neglect, claiming this compel them to engage in the truck-pushing business on Wednesdays and Saturdays, which are the town's market days, to raise money for their educational and other needs. The Eastern Regional Coordinator of the GNCC, Mr Anthony Dontoh, assured the authorities of the two schools that their plight would be made known to the Eastern Regional Co-ordinating Council so that remedial actions could be taken to bring some respite to the children.

Other members of the team were Miss Jane Kwapong, the Regional Director of Women and Development and Mr Baah Ntiri, Regional Guidance and Counselling Coordinator.

body-container-line